I just love saying the word potpourri. How many of you just called it “Pot Porry” right now? Me too, for a long time, longer than I’d care to admit.

Well, a bit of news around the league last few days, all involving coaches getting fired and at least one, Bruce “Gabby” Boudreau already re-hired in Anaheim. In case you missed it, late last night the Ducks fired Randy Carlyle and hired Boudreau, fired just three days ago in Washington.

So now Carlyle, who had a contract that ran through 2013/14 with the Ducks, is looking for work. He won a Stanley Cup just four years ago in Anaheim, and took them to the Western Conference finals the year before that. He’s a good coach. And yes, Avs fan, I know what you’re thinking.

Let me just say that for as long as Joe Sacco is the coach here, I’m not going to get into any baseless “Will Carlyle or any other coach come here soon?” speculation. Sacco is the coach right now and I don’t have any solid information that suggests he won’t be the coach for Friday’s game against St. Louis and beyond. But understand: we’ve seen already how fast things can move with coaching matters, so the same thing could always happen here. More performances like last night’s against the Devils, though, and Sacco won’t have to worry about anything for a while. Trouble is, one of the hottest teams in the league comes to town tomorrow night – St. Louis – a team that turned it all around after they got a new coach, Ken Hitchcock.

I will shoot down one thing though: for those wondering if Patrick Roy might be laying in the weeds, should a change be made at some point by the Avs, and could take over? Not going to happen. I’ve got it on good authority that that ship, at least for now, has sailed. But it’s a valid question for fans. The Avs did offer Roy the coaching and GM position two years ago, but money differences and maybe some other issues of control got in the way. Roy is heavily involved still with his Quebec junior team, and there is lots of informed speculation that he might be quietly one of the people involved in trying to bring an NHL franchise back to Quebec City.

BOBBY RYAN
Do I think the Avs have interest in Bobby Ryan? Is the Pope Catholic? Yes I do. How serious are they in possibly trying to acquire the Anaheim left wing, reportedly on the market? Like a LOT of teams I do believe the Avs have placed a call to GM Bob Murray. Beyond that, I don’t know of any names that might have been offered to get him. I think the Avs would LOVE to have a Bobby Ryan playing on the left side with Matt Duchene or a Paul Stastny. Trouble is, what would it take to get him? A first-round pick in next year’s draft? Avs don’t have one, remember. We could all throw names against the wall here and wonder if Anaheim would take them, but I won’t do that myself. All I can say is, yes, I believe the Avs are like most every team out there – interested in what it might take to get Bobby Ryan. And maybe they’ve already been told “it’ll take this and this and this” and things went nowhere. We’ll see.
I would say that the Ducks have to decide on this very quickly. I don’t buy the theory that Bob Murray will just take his sweet time and turn this into a bidding war. He needs to either make a deal quickly or tell Ryan “We’re not trading you, sorry for the distraction”, because the longer it goes, the greater the risk Ryan maybe either quits on the team or is so mentally distracted by it that his play goes to seed and drives down his trade value.

A few other things, on the lighter side:
– If you haven’t been listening to the new “Marek vs. Wyshynski” daily hockey podcast on iTunes and elsewhere, you’re missing out big-time. A lot of good, smart, fun hockey talk with usually good guests as well. I didn’t realize Jeff Marek was so good. Funny, tells good hockey stories, keeps the pace of the show moving at a rapid clip. And “Puck Daddy” Wyshynski, who was gracious enough to come on my own podcast a couple weeks ago, plays well off of Marek.

– As for my own podcast “Hockey Talk, with Adrian Dater”, I skipped it last week, partially because my old laptop screen cracked, the one with all the software I needed to do the shows saved on the desktop. Trying to get it all back together now and might do one tonight, so we’ll see.

id trade stastny for bobby or ryan or zach parise straight up….hell id throw in galiardi and maybe even david “invisible” jones

Flapjack

Any deal for Ryan would have to have Stastny involved as the centerpiece. The problem is that in addition to someone like Jones, there would have to be a defenseman in the mix as well. Someone young with a lot of talent. It’d be nice if they would take Wilson, but I’m guessing they wouldn’t settle for less than Elliott or Barrie along with Stastny and Jones. Best case, since we have no draft picks with which to bargain, a deal could maybe get done for Wilson, Jones, and Stats with Ryan and maybe a 6th rounder or something equally obsolete in return. Not sure that’s even worth it.

Joshem003

id be okay with Barrie being thrown in. It sounds like they were going to trade Bobby Ryan to wake up the club, but now with the firing of carlyle maybe they will wait.

Rob

Why would it be nice if they took Wilson? For much of the year he’s been the Avs best defensman!

Flapjack

Nice in the sense that we wouldn’t be giving up either of our two top prospects at defense. Plus, I think we all agree that, the way he’s playing right now, this is pretty much the peak of Wilson’s skill set. Sure, he’s a good #3-4, but he’ll likely never be a top-2 guy. Selling high is the smart thing to do while he’s valuable. He might ask for Jeff Finger money next year, anyway. Better for that to be someone else’s problem.

Greg.D.

“Plus, I think we all agree that, the way he’s playing right now, this is pretty much the peak of Wilson’s skill set. Sure, he’s a good #3-4, but he’ll likely never be a top-2 guy.”

No, we don’t all agree. Wilson is amazing. Easily a “top two” guy. Plays great no matter how the team or game is going. Famous league-wide for his checks, excellent passer and smart player. He’s a rock out there.

Greg

Flapjack

You’re right, Wilson’s the next Pronger, Seabrook, Weber, Yandle, Lidstrom, Chara… Sorry, he’s a great player and I would hate to lose him, but he’s not even Dion Phaneuf. He’s Francois Beauchemin or Mike Komisarek. He’s the latest in a great line of excellent complimentary Avs defensemen that can lay out a hit, play soundly in their own zone, and chip in with a few points every year. Like Uwe Krupp, Jon Klemm, Greg de Vries, and Scott Hannan before him, He’s a great #3, but he hasn’t exactly been able to shoulder the load and be the go-to-guy and if you think he’s “arrived,” you must not be watching the home games this year. He’s the guy you use as a piece in a trade to make your team better somewhere else before he asks for $4-$5 million a year and leaves for nothing Fleischmann-style.

Justin

Any deal for Ryan would have Duchene or Landeskog as the centerpiece. Not Stastny.

Phrish

You just know that the moment Stastny is traded (if it ever happens), he will turn into the biggest stud the NHL has ever seen. We’ll hear no end to the “Why didn’t he play like that here?” comments…

Smell the Glove

“Hey Ducks or Devils, there’s a guy on the internet willing to give away three guys on his team that he doesn’t like for either Bobby Ryan or Zach Parise. Interested?

….hello?”

Joshem003

smell the glove…do you ever get tired of posting really horrid posts? its got to wear you out at some point.

Smell the Glove

Just have a laugh, dude. We’re not curing cancer here.

Joshem003

I like my posts the way i like my women….extremeley serious. I’m not even sure what that means.

Smell the Glove

There you go

Big Swifty

What was wrong with that joke? It’s not just a joke. That’s what WOULD happen.

Colorado Gary

I’ve always enjoyed Smell the Glove’s posts, I view him as one of the gold standards around here. Smeller – Don’t get a new glove either…. and don’t wash it!

Mi Nic007

Paul stastny (26 years old)335pts/373 game 0.898 pts/per game has better stats than bobby ryan(24 years old)214pts/274game 0.78pts/per game and Paul stastny don’t play with the guys like perry and getzlaf.

Mi Nic007

johnson for ryan is much better trade

Mi Nic007

do not do à Sherman of you, command guy !!!

Jon

Adrian, can you at least comment on the “noise” surrounding potential coach firings that you’ve experienced in the past around the Avs organization? I’ve always been of the impression that it’s always been pretty hush hush so there might not be any feathers being ruffled that you even know about. Maybe you’ve noticed some similarities between what’s going on now and what has happened in the past with other coaches?

Thanks.

Anonymous

Who determined that the future draft of this franchise would be so greatly thrown away on a goalie…..

Elliott may not be a long term answer, but when you put a team in front of a goalie shows what they can do. The guy is 10-1.

Flash may have never wanted to sign here, maybe received too much in salary…..but there’s no denying that he was wearing an Avs sweater last year, and this year he’s not. Oh yeah and he’s lighting up the league in an excellent start to a year.

Not huge events, but just goes to show……an accountant should not be in charge of anything but numbers.

KG

Stastny needs to be traded, swap him for Ryan, both guys are still young and both guys would benefit from a change of scenery… Paul Stats is a better player than he has been playing this year.. Although I have really liked Duchene on the wing alot

Mark T

Here’s the real question: Does this team even need/want Bobby Ryan? He’s a talented goal scorer, yes, but would his style of play really work with Duchene? Would he work well with Stastny, or would Stastny still disappear even with Ryan on his wing?
Obviously, if we could get him for free it’s be idiotic not to want him, but think about this: There are going to be a lot of teams interested in trading for Ryan, which means that the price for him is going to be very high – it’s simple supply and demand. To get Ryan, we’d likely have to overpay for him in order to outbid the other teams. If we got him, we might end up giving away players in the deal who end up being better than Ryan. Now, if we could pull off a trade like the one that brought Phaneuf to Toronto, then I’d be all for it, but I just doubt that is going to happen here.

Rob

It may be that we have to trade Stastny as part of a package for Ryan. Even if he doesn’t work with Duchene, how does a line of Landeskog, O’Reilly, and Bobby Ryan sound?

Mark T

It sounds good, but it really depends on what we had to give up to make that line. I don’t want this team trading away all it’s prospects and draft picks for Bobby Ryan. We already made big trades for young guys when we brought in EJ and Varlamov.
I just doubt we can get a good deal for him.

Rb9cms

Stop dissin’ Matt Stajan, will ya?

Gues

EJ, barrie and Cann for bobby Ryan

Big Swifty

I don’t see Stastny going anywhere. He just isn’t the demon some fools around here make him out to be. Elliott will go NOWHERE but Colorado. And please, please make sure that Duncan Siemens is not traded.

Bottom line: To get a Bobby Ryan, you have to cough up something you really don’t want to. Eric Johnson will not get it done until he proves out his potential (and he has plenty of it). Stastny is staying and……… F it! We don’t have the pieces. We will have to solve our lack of a Chris Stewart some other way.

P.S. The best part of that Johnson/Stewart trade will be Duncan Siemens in my definitely not humble opinion.

Kev

Carlyle wouldn’t be able to do anything with this Avs roster. As long as Kroenke & Son keep the minimum payroll even Scotty Bowman couldn’t get this team to the postseason. They’ll keep Sacco around because Sacco is just happy to have a job in the NHL. No other team would ever hire him as a coach, just like no other team would ever hire Sherman to be their GM. Sherman and Sacco are here because they’re “Yes Men”.

Joshem003

we now currently have the lowest payroll in the league. We were 2nd lowest for awhile, but with hard work and dedication, the Kroenke’s have gotten us to last. Congrats boys!!!

I hear and agree (somewhat) about Stastny. I just don’t think we should let him go!!! Please don’t go Stastny!!!! I really like him; he IS a talented hockey player. To point fingers at him only is unrealistic…. It is all of them!! No one has been amazing offensively. Yes, some are playing better than others or more “consistently” but come on…. Get off the “hate on Stastny” bandwagon! He was on the ice for our first 3 goals last night!!! Give the kid a break, everyone (Hejduk, Duchene, Lando, TJ, Yip, Jones) needs to step it up! Trust me I am not totally happy with my boy Stastny… Trading him will do nothing but piss us all off during the end of the season and many years to follow…. Give O’Reilly the “A”….! Go Avs!

Puckmeup

I don’t know that anyone could comfortably place Hejduk in the same category as the other listed above. Hejduk has been playing like the stud he was born to be all season long. The way he played last season and how he’s playing now are like the differences between night and day…hands down! And whatever you write/say, please don’t even think about putting Lando in the mix either because that’s simply not so! If you want to say that everyone is struggling offensively, than there is some merit to that statement, but to suggest anything outside of that for Hejduk and Lando is just downright incorrect!

Anonymous

I wouldn’t mind Stastny for Ryan I’m just wondering what else you’d have to include in that deal because there’s no way that’s enough. I’m not saying I want to trade Stastny just that if we were able to acquire Ryan that is who I’d feel ok with giving up. Another thing though, Duchene is not doing very well at center this year, if you trade Stastny you do so assuming Duchene would step in and fill that role. Would he though? Maybe with a good wingers he would, look at what he and Flash did together last year. I just don’t think the Avs have the ammo to make this move and this is supposed to be a rebuild, they’ve already given up a lot of future assets in other trades recently.

I would definitely NOT be ok with giving up Elliot for any deal though, so if that’s what it takes then hang up the phone. I doubt Ryan will go anywhere now anyways, after firing their coach the Ducks have made one change and I’m sure they’ll ride with that for a while.

Terry Frei graduated from Wheat Ridge High School in the Denver area and has degrees in history and journalism from the University of Colorado-Boulder. He worked for the Rocky Mountain News while attending CU and joined the Post staff after graduation. He has also worked at the Oregonian in Portland, Ore., and The Sporting News. His seventh book, March 1939: Before the Madness, was issued in February 2014.

Chambers covers college and professional hockey for The Denver Post. He has written for the Post since 1994, after dumping his first 9-to-5 office job a couple years out of college. He primarily follows the University of Denver hockey team and helps cover the Avalanche.